Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Remember a while ago when I told you about Charlotte? Well, I finally had to break her web and take the garbage out, and then I didn't see her anymore. Even though she didn't ever do anything really cool like write me a note or catch a mockingbird in her web, I was kind of sad to see her go.

Yesterday, though, I saw these two hanging out in the trees in the backyard:

I named them Nellie and Joy after Charlotte's daughters that stayed with Wilbur. If I find a third, I'll name her Aranea. If I find anymore, I'm just going to hand out numbers until their personalities emerge. I'm going to make more of an effort with these two; having two big ol' spiders as my friends might be kind of fun.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Let me preface this post by saying I don't only take the dogs to bars. We go other places, too. Like thebeach, the lake, charity dog walks, etc. But it's much easier to take pictures of your dogs when they are 6 feet away from you being cute while you enjoy a beer than it is to take a picture of them while you are swimming away from them and trying not to drown. Also the dogs are like my kids, and while it's frowned upon to bring your kids to the bar, people seem to really enjoy having Bad Mutha Fudruckers at the bar.

Dex made it back safe and sound on Friday. He had a great weekend with his mom, road tripping and hanging out with Other Ernie, Danielle's mom's chihuahua. To celebrate his return, we took the boys to The Barbary Coast, a little hole in the wall bar downtown that is Dex and Ernie friendly. It's definately an interesting place; here are some examples of some of the art work:

Dex was totally in his element:

He even got "behind the bar" privledges:

Now all I've got to do is teach him to grab me a beer while he's back there.

Ernie doesn't have as much fun, because of the Loud Noises coming from the pool tables and the fact that I was constantly moving. He likes his special people to Stay Put where he can keep an eye on them so they Don't Escape.

But then no one had fun because Dex and Ernie got grounded for barking at dogs outside of the bar:

..and I couldn't play pool because I had to keep a close eye on these Mutha Fudruckers. So I took this picture:

Then it was time to go:

I got home and had pasta with meat sauce and dripped pasta sauce all over my shirt. I am a messy eater.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Barf. Today sucks. It started off rough because I had way too much fun at Tina's house last night, drinking margaritas, eating delicious turkey meatballs, and losing at Scrabble. So I was already planning on hating this morning. When the alarm went off it was still way dark, and Ernie was hogging all the blankets. The lightbulb in my room has been burnt out for a couple days now, but it's too high for me to reach (even on a chair!) and the BF has ignored several requests to bring his ladder over, so my room dark.

By some happy accident I managed to find some stain- and wrinkle-free work-appropriate clothes and a whole pair of underwear. My morning's looking up! I thought. So what if I almost barfed in the shower? Onward and upward! I poured myself some Cranberry Splash Sierra Mist and headed out the door. Hey, the car started! Sweet!

But then shit headed downhill. I sat at just about every stop light between my house and work. I really had to blow my nose and couldn't find a tissue. I forgot to put my check card back in my wallet so no delicious Sausage McMuffin for me. Oh, it gets worse. You know that funky liquid that collects in your cup holder if you don't clean it out like, ever? Well, I dripped some of that on my pants as I was getting out of the car. That shit stinks. Literally. It smells bad. And now it's on me. I tried to scrub it out in the bathroom, but I just spread the stain around. I'm still smelling the smell now. Yuck. A co-worker brought doughnuts in, and everyone ate the good ones while I was trying to scrub the funk out of my pants. The only two left were a jelly-filled (barf) and a half of a dry non-glazed cake one. Who eats half a doughnut and leaves it in the box?

It doesn't matter anyway; the funk from my pants is turning my stomach.

*Note: I know my day could be much worse. I have a job, a home, friends, family, and awesome pets. But still; a girl's allowed to complain once in a while, right?

Thursday, September 25, 2008

When I was little, we had this series of books and tapes geared towards teaching kids morals. Each installment focused on some lesson; responsibility, generosity, honesty, blah blah blah. I don't even know how we got it. I do remember it came with popsicle stick puppets that my sisters and I would use to put on ridiculous plays (which usually offered little by way of storyline and definitely didn't seek to extol any virtue). One particular scene from the "truthfulness" installment sticks with me. A girl walks past a bakery and decides to get a doughnut. A strawberry frosted one (my favorite). She buys one, and realizes that the clerk had given her two much change; now she has enough money to buy another doughnut, but decides to do the right thing and gives the extra change back. Whatever. That story sucks.

Which brings me to the kind of similar but mostly different experience I had the other night at the gas station. I had paid for my gas at the pump already, but went in to get some Gatorade (1 @ $2.09) and Red Bull (3/$5). Don't judge me. Anyway, when my total came to $4.37, I motioned to my purchases:

I totally felt like I was stealing. I felt bad, but then I remembered that I had just paid $60+ to fill up my Honda Accord, so I felt not so bad. But then I stayed up until 2am on a weeknight, drinking Red Bull and vodka and watching "I Love the 80s" for what must have been the billionth time. In the morning I felt bad again. I should have gotten a doughnut.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Ernie and mailman are not friends. Yesterday, just as I was walking out of the door to take Ernie for a walk, the mailman was walking up the steps. Ernie started barking. Not his "Hey, I'm way excited to see you" bark, either. He busted out his "Holy smokes some shit's about to go down" bark. I pulled him back inside while my bills and SuperSaver flyer were delivered. I don't want to piss the mailman off even more. He's already screwing with my Netflix. I'll never get to watch the third "The Future is Wild" disc if I get on his badside.

Dexter is in South Carolina this week with his mom, who is on a break from her job as a stewardess on a yacht named Wanderbird. I know he's having a blast, but the house is a little empty without him. The days are longer for Ernie, since he has to spend the work day at home alone, drinking rum and barking at the mailman. Hemo prefers to spend the day sunbathing on the porch.

My bad. Just don't get run over.

On the upside, he's got more free time for finding and eating underwear.

To give myself a little Dex fix, and to prove that Ernie is not the sole target of my abuse, here are some pictures of Dex (who views the camera as a torture device) with his moose.

Hahaha, there is a moose on my back!

I grow weary of this game.

Um, he fell off. Not my fault.

You have compromised my dignity. Now give me a treat.

P.S. Please excuse the filthy floors. I do mop quite a bit, but when we get rain for a couple days in a row, the floors suffer.

I saw this driving home from Virginia last night. I'm not sure what else to say about it, other than it shared storefront space in a strip mall with a hair salon called Hairicanes. Across the street is a business called "Granny's Day Care," but I haven't figured out if it's Granny who is doing the babysitting, or if Granny is the one getting her diaper changed. I kind of want to know, but I kind of don't. This block of Market Street is pretty much most of North Carolina in a nutshell. Go 'CANES!

This weekend I was in Richmond with my aunts, sisters, and mom. Every year my Aunt Lisa's company reserves King's Dominion for a Family Appreciation Day, and we get together to enjoy funnel cakes, pretzels, fried oreos (don't ask), frozen lemonade, and the awesomely short lines for the rides. I feel like I'm in that episode of Full House where they go to DisneyWorld and Michelle is named "Princess for the Day" or some crap, and they get front of the line privileges. Seriously, the day rocked. Except no Uncle Jesse. Boo. It wasn't until I was halfway into the 5 hour drive home that I started thinking about the names of the coasters I'd been enjoying all day. Just to throw a couple out there for you, we have:

The Dominator

The Anaconda

The Shocker

Ok, the last one was technically the "Shock Wave," but still, I'm sensing a pattern. I think King's Dominion wants to violate me. But as long as they keep the fried oreos coming, I guess I'm ok with it.

Friday, September 19, 2008

I love watching Jeopardy, playing Trivial Pursuit, and coming close to but never quite finishing crossword puzzles. Bar trivia is the best, though. After a long night of waiting tables, I used to love nothing more than taking the tips I had wrestled from my redneck tables and blowing it on tall Miller Lites and fried bar food at the Buffalo Wild Wings across the street, playing round after round of trivia while my co-workers spent all night coming up with screen names like PNIS and URMOMSUX. I’m not a competitive person by nature, but there is something about seeing WINNER: MTHRFDRKR displayed for all to see on the tiny corner TV dedicated to trivia in a smoky sports bar. When I moved Michigan for a year and had no friends, I made my mom go with me to Buffalo Wild Wings on the regular for the single purpose of beating her at NTS Trivia. In your FACE, Mom! Plus, the chili and cheese Buffalo Chips are pretty good.

Lately I’ve been getting into team trivia, which is a whole ‘nother ball game. A local beach bar hosts (in conjunction with a radio station) Wednesday night trivia night, complete with prizes and a raffle. It’s mostly regulars that show up; 2 groups of older, weathered beach locals, a younger, yuppie-ish team, and then my team. My team boasts the youngest mean age of any of the regular teams, and also the loosest roster of players (basically anyone who can show up at 7:00 on a Wednesday night). We have yet to win it all, (none of us were born when the Salvation Army was founded by William and Catherine Booth in London in 1865, as I suspect some members of opposing teams were), but we’ve had a respectable showing. We may not know which European city hosted the first organized autorace in 1887 (Paris--our guess: Stuttgart), but we do know which rock legend Trudie Styler is married to, and what year Nelson Mandela was freed from prison.

Any trivia team has some variation on the following cast of characters:

The Organizer: Can be counted on to send out a mass text message reminding everyone of the date and time of trivia. The Organizer arrives early, reserves a table, and has a couple of pitchers sweating on the table by the time the rest of the team trickles in. Usually comes prepared with a pen, either behind his ear or in her purse.

The Scribe: Invariably has the worst handwriting on the team. Not known to contribute much by way of answers, the Scribe faithfully writes down the first answer that comes out of anyone’s mouth. The Scribe isn’t usually a great speller, and will unabashedly inquire as to the number of l’s in “Mandela.”

The Mouth: Calls out any “funny” answer that pops into his head, to the perceived amusement of the entire bar. Examples may include:

Q: What is the name for a horse that has yet to win a race?The Mouth: A LOSER!

Additional minor characters:The Sports/Music/History Know-it-All: An annoyingly necessary evil.The Namer: Who wouldn’t want to be a part of Team Turd Ferguson?The Dumb Girlfriend: Unnecessary. ‘Nuf said.

I was sweeping the leaves/dirt/broken Old English bottles off of the sidewalk in front of my house yesterday when I was approached by a skinny, bald, black man.

Him: Looks like you could use some help.

Me: (laughs) I could use some help getting my grass cut.

I could use some help convincing the neighborhood lay-abouts that my front lawn is not a glass recycling bin.

Him: Well, ma'am, I'm staying at a shelter right now, but I've done some landscaping and I could cut your grass for you.

I agree to pay him $20 to cut my front and back yard with a lawnmower he'll borrow from a friend. Thunder is rumbling in the distance and it's sprinkling, so I tell him to come back tomorrow around 5:30 to cut the grass.

Him: I-I, uh, I really need that $20 today, ma'am. I have to make my rent or he's going to put me out.

Rent? Are they charging rent at homeless shelters now? And who's 'he'?

I tell the guy it's up to him if he wants to mow in the rain, and he walks down the street to get the lawn mower.

He shows up 15 minutes later with a gas-powered weed eater, which he cannot get to stay cranked long enough to cut more than 2 or 3 blades of grass. After about 45 minutes of cursing at and tinkering with the weed eater (with Ernie and I watching from the window), he admits defeat and knocks on my door.

Him: I don't know what's wrong with that thing. But I'm almost half-way done (he's not even 1/5 of the way done with the front yard), so if you pay me that $20 now I'll come back tomorrow and do the rest.

Me: Um, I can pay you $5 for what you've done, sir, but I don't feel comfortable paying you the rest until the work is done.

Me: Sir, I'm sorry. I don't want your wallet, and I can't let you leave the weed eater here. If you can come back tomorrow to cut the grass, I'll be happy to pay you the rest of the money.

He leaves, and I start to feel bad. I mean, I not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but $20 on any given day is not going to make or break me. I'm thinking maybe I should have just given him the money and hoped for some good karma.

Cut to: a half hour later, Ernie is freaking out and I hear a lawnmower cranking out front. I look out the window and Mr. I-Need-That-Money-Right-Now has procured a lawnmower from who-knows-where and is cutting the grass with a shit-eating grin on his face. He sees me at the window, waves, points to the lawn mower, and gives me a thumbs up. Sweet. But now I'm faced with a dilemma. I have a 20, a 10, and four 1 dollar bills, minus the $5 I gave to him earlier. I think about trying to get the $5 back from him and giving him the $20 bill, but I know I'd probably just end up giving him all $25. A thorough search of the house reveals nary a stray dollar bill. I have to break into my precious stash of vending machine quarters to come up with the last dollar of the $15 I owe him. Apologizing for the change as I hand the money to him, I am secretly mourning the loss of those four quarters.

Monday, September 15, 2008

I actually wasn't sure I was going to get this picture; I saw it on my way home on Wednesday, and didn't stop until Friday, when I pulled into the parking lot and snapped a couple of pictures. I had a brief twinge of guilt, like maybe I should call the 87 year old church secretary and let her know about the misspell. My urge to be a good samaritan left me when I realized that I may never get this chance again in the age of spell check. Sure, I live in North Carolina, where the teachers are discouraged from teaching children anything other than what is necessary to pass annual "end-of-grade" tests. You'd think this kind of thing would happen all the time. It doesn't. Or if it does, I'm too busy writing down litter bugs' license plate numbers so I can report them to the DOT to notice.

I had several thoughts on my drive home from the Oak Grove Presbyterian Church. My first thought was that maybe it was all a clever ploy to get more butts in the pews. I mean, they got me half-way there--I was in the parking lot, albeit briefly. I also had a procrastinator's jealousy of the preacher's time-management skills. Wednesday morning and he already had Sunday's sermon written? I tip my hat to you, sir. I ran out of toilet paper last Thursday and I've been wiping my butt with paper towels ever since because I keep putting off running down to the neighborhood Food Lion.

Friday, September 12, 2008

It's very rare you get to witness a mother tomato giving birth, so I moved her onto some bags of pistachios to get a better look. I was tempted to buy her, but she would have just sat on my windowsill where I would have looked at her every day and said "weird" until she turned into moldy tomato mush. Then I would have to throw her away. So I saved myself the 89 cents (and her the indignity) and just took a picture.

I hope she found a good home. I'm sure she's delicious.

Anyway, that's pretty much it. Enjoy the weekend!

**Edited to add:Does anyone know when/how to tell if olive oil has gone bad? Several cases of sealed bottles of olive oil have found it's way into the BF's kitchen, expiration date August 2008. Is it safe for consumption? Or am I throwing a major slip'n'slide party? Both?

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The Mutha Fudruckers will be playing host to a guest for an extended period of time soon, so in the interest of hospitality, I thought I'd do a little tidying up of the lair.

Bathroom: I don't know if I've even looked at the baseboards in my closet-sized bathroom since I moved in. I consider myself lucky if I can get into the shower without knocking my deoderant into the toilet. I talked to my sister as I scrubbed the shower, bathtub, toilet, sink, walls, fixtures, curtain--you name it, I bleached and/or ammonia-ed it. At the end of our 45 minute conversation, I was laughing hysterically about my niece being the smartest kid on the short bus. I think I was high.Kitchen: Dishes cleaned? Counters wiped? Floor swept? This is usually where I stop. Not tonight. I moved and swept behind the stove and refrigerator. Speaking of the fridge, I cleaned it out. It now contains a) a box of baking soda; b) one 1/2 gallon of milk. I guess I'll be grocery shopping in the very near future. Unfortunately the kitchen also serves as the wet bar, so my Sailor Jerry consumption reached dangerous levels. Fortunately, there were no harsh chemicals or sharp knives to negotiate. I survived.

Next on the Hit List o' Cleanliness: The Laundry Monster.

The Laundry Monster lives in the guest room. He is generally ignored until I run out of underwear or work clothes. FYI: I'm not above wearing certain articles several times before washing (it's amazing what a little Febreeze and a steam iron can do), so he can lay dormant for several weeks. Hemo loves the Laundry Monster; when he is finally disturbed, cat hair and dander fly from the nests and tunnels she's constructed.

I hate doing laundry; I have to bribe myself to do it. Last night's bribe consisted of Sailor Jerry's and ginger ale, set to the tune of the 80's at 8:00 and the 90's at 9:00 (compliments of 102.7 WGNI). Between 8:00pm and 11:48pm, I had washed 4 loads of laundry, dried 3, put away 2, and called it a night with the last one still unfolded on the couch. We watched "Me, You, and Everyone We Know," which is a pretty decent movie; I would definately recommend adding it to your Netflix queue.